Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics, where we discuss the top political headlines with some of today's best minds. And Governor Gretchen Whitmer has proposed a tax credit for caregivers.
We have a star studded show. Today.
Congressman Andy Kim tells us about his Senate run and the bizarre New Jersey ballad structure that allows party insiders to have enormous advantages. Then we'll talk to CNN anchor and my personal bestie Jim Acosta about the media failures covering the twenty twenty four election. But first we have former Vermont governor and presidential candidate Howard Dean. Welcome back to Fast Politics, Howard Dean, Thanks for having me.
This is always light.
I'm so excited.
So I can't take another conversation about polls. Make us all understand how insane and stupid this whole thing is.
I don't think I can. I try not to pay too much attention to the polls because one of the problems is that the media engages in clickbait and that's about it, and that's always been the case. I mean, I can remember finding that out when I ran for president myself. It's all clickbait, it's not news. It's a problem because the so called low information voters are basically all cranked up. This is the only thing good Trump
is good at. I mean, basically, the Republicans are running on a platform that can be summed up in two words, rage and hate, and it's successful with people who don't think about the issues. It's amazing what the public doesn't know. Part of it is because the press doesn't focus on what they know, and part of it is because there is no press for a lot of the folks that are getting their news through Fox and places like that.
I think about Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, right, and how a lot of economists would the exception of Paul Krukman.
Basically, we're like, this is going to be a recession.
Even we have a very smart guy called Justin Wolfer's on the podcast all the time, and Justin was like, you know, you don't know, he was bullish, but even he was cautious. And what happened was we didn't have it. And the reason we didn't have it was because of bold legislative infusions to our government, to our manufacturing sectors, through the Inflation Reduction Act, which actually reduced inflation.
And furthermore, most of the investments in the Inflation Reduction Act went to the places which are full of people who are Trumpists. Yeah, a lot of money went into rural areas, rekindling factories to make chips and cars, electric cars and all this kind of stuff. I heard a maddening interview from a member of the United Auto Workers the other day, who have endorsed Biden for good reason, and they saying, well, you know, we don't do what
our union says. I think that we both voted for Trump the last time, and all this stuff, and I thought, you know, it is so frustrating. People are demanding this and demanding that, and then you give it to them and then they turn against you. Anyway.
It's really tough.
I think the country is at great risk and they don't see that either. He is not a high education group of people. But still this is a democracy.
It's interesting to me because, like so much of Trump's message in twenty sixteen was this economic populism, which I think was one of the reasons he won against Tilly Clinton was he said I'm going to bring back, you know, jobs, I'm going to bring back coal, which, by the way, coal, besides being just horrendous for the planet, is also wildly expensive. So even if you were like, I hate the planet and we have to like get this coal, even then it still doesn't make any financial sense. But he had
this message of economic populism. Meanwhile, fastward, Joe Biden delivers economic populism.
Right.
He does these things.
You know, he brings chip manufacturing back to the Middle West, which was like, you know, a fantasy really of previous presidents. There seems to be a disconnect between what he's done and what he gets credit for.
Right, here's what I think is really happening, and it's irrelevant, unfortunately, to all the good stuff that Biden has done. This is a group of very angry people for the first time in my life and maybe in the history of the country. If you're a fifty year old white guy and you lose your job in rural America, you're not getting another one unless you're a reader at Walmart or
something like that. Minority communities are very familiar with this syndrome, but white folks aren't, and they think, well, you know, why are women have all these rights? How come black people have all these rights? How come gay people have all these rights? And so in some ways, what Trump does, what he sells is none of this is your fault. It's all the liberal elite and the college educated people and the you know people are teaching about African American
history and the universities. It's all their fault and none of it's your fault. So he really is absolving people of any responsibility to improve their own communities. I'll do it for you. I'll just get rid of these people, And of course he never does. It is the same playbook that Mussolini Hitler played that was.
Talking Eddy cut about this.
It's sort of the last rebellion, the backlash of a multi racial democracy. Right, We've never had a multi racial democracy. Theoretically, at least there was a sense we might be getting closer to it, and then Trumpism came in and took.
All of that away.
The math on that, like, there may be white men in the middle of the country who lose their jobs, but the numbers on unemployment dictate that actually it's a very very tight labor market, and so they should technically, I mean again, I don't know, you know, people's personal stories, but they should be able to get another job.
It's not what it's about. It's not about the economy. It's about their economy to a certain extent. But what it's about is the forty year creep towards a multi racial democracy where women goal rights. I mean, the reason so many Republicans are against abortion and against now against IVF is it's really not about IVF or Republicans. What it's about is controlling women even in their own towns. They've seen women get more rights than they used to have.
They've seen gay people allowed to get married before they were just cast out and made fun of for their whole life. It is in the sense Eddie, who is one of the smartest people I ever met, is right in the sense that it's the loss of white privilege. But it's more than that.
It's an absolution.
It's a giving up on making progress or redefining what progress is. Progress is not living in a peaceful country where democracy hails. It is resentment towards a lot of the change that's been made. And the other problem is this is all fueled by the billionaire class. It's not accident. The billionaires who are lean Republican are founding no labels because it's the way of making sure that Trump wins.
And that's because they benefit from the system. What all of this does is divert attention from the abuses that white working class people are taking it the hands of billionaires because it works to abuse white working class people. They've been doing it for years and blame it on the usual suspects, women, gay people, people of color, and so forth and so on. That's what Trump is really
good at. He's not good at anything else. Ailed businessman, as Judge anger On said, he's a crook, he's a narcissist, he was incompetent when he was president.
But he's really really good at this.
It does remind me of a story of aut Alf Hitler, because Adlf Hitler was an incompetent and a failed artist, and he had this tremendous gift for blaming other people.
Unfortunately it ended up with a holocaust.
And I think they're a fair number of people in the Republican Party who wouldn't think that was so bad. How about the guy who got up at Seapack and said, welcome to the end of democracy. And that is for reasonable political dialogue in the United States of America. I don't think so. So this election really is about the survival of the United States of America as a world power.
And if we know people think, oh, it's great not to be a world power, why should we be because we have the level of prosperity we have because the dollar is the current of the recurrency reference for the world. If it isn't, we don't get away with a thirty one trillion dollar deficit. So I think these folks have absolutely no idea what they're doing to their children by voting for somebody like Trump.
It's interesting.
You know, you're a doctor and you've done a lot of work lining the ground works for how we got Obamacare. So I'm curious what you think about the embryonic personhood stuff out of Alabama. It seems like ideologically the Christian right has for a long time wanted to make sure that a five celled embryo had the same rights as a person. Insane, But I mean, what do you think about that? And I feel like, politically that's very stupid and it's going to bite Republicans.
Yeah, it is going to bite Republicans, and so is the right wing partisan Supreme Court is going to bite Republicans and they realize that, but it's too late for them. Now, you know, the court has degenerated and nothing but parsians in Republican operation, and that's what it is. So the institutions that are already beginning to crumble, there's a lot of work to be done to fix it. But we can't fix it with somebody like Trump in the White House. It'll just get worse.
Yeah, But there have been like some kind of like huge healthcare jumps, like five dollars insulin Medicare expansion, like we're seeing, you know, quietly none of this is getting any attention, which happens to actually be good for people like Andy Burschers and different other states where they're trying to do Medicare expansion quietly so that Republicans can't make it a partisan issue. But I mean, these policies are weirdly like once they get in place, people love them.
Like people don't want to give up Obamacare.
Well that's what.
They don't want to give up Obamacare, and they certainly don't want to give up Social Security and Medicare, which they're certainly not. I finally turned the volume down on cutting because they know it's murder for them if you cut them. The stuff about IVF is just right wing white Christian nationalism, which is incredibly sexist. If you read the scriptures about it, it's basically they underline all the stuff that's about subjugation to women, and that's what these
people are doing. And the incredible part about the opinion in Alabama was it was written by a right wing Christian nationalists. I think he was the justice that wrote out the opinion, and he basically said, this is right wing Christian nationalism and women shouldn't be doing any of these things. I mean, you know, it's pretty extraordinary. That's who's going in charge of HHS if Donald Trump wins.
Yeah.
And by the way, like even if you look at that Heritage Foundation twenty twenty five document, you know they want to make the Department of Health and Human Services the Department of Life.
Yeah.
I mean, HEREDAGE used to be a respectable organization and when that guy Dement took over, it became just another right wing group of crackpots. They actually had a fairly decent healthcare operation. They were conservative, but they were thoughtful.
And very very knowledgeable.
When Dement came in it just turned into a party than shipwreck, and that's what it is now.
It's kind of amazing.
But I do think it's interesting, Like as we look at so you know, Republicans, everybody in the House is up.
Then you have this Senate map.
Which is really good for Republicans, but you know, a lot a lot of the candidates we're seeing, I mean, I think this is really interesting. Are these self funded carpetbaggers coming from other states? And I have to wonder how much of that is because a lot of this money is already sort of allocated to Donald Trump's legal fees.
Carpetbaggers from out of states has been a Republican strategy for a long time, and it most doesn't work. Times it does, but mostly it doesn't.
So we'll see.
I mean, look the election. I do not think in the end that Donald Trump is going to be the next president of the United States, because I do believe that Americans are going to look at this at the end of the day. Now, we don't know when Trump
beat Hillary. It was mostly because James Comey changed the subject at the last minute from Trump's anti women stuff to Hillary's supposed emails, and he changed it not because he wanted to influence the election, but because he wanted to save his butt in case of Republican Committee that he'd promised to tell everything to got into power. So as Rick Santorum once said, is the only smart thing he ever said, so I could tell he said he
was asked about this. We were doing a panel in Toronto about the election, and somebody asked about the election, and he said, these are the two most unpopular people that have ever run for president, and which everyone we're talking about last is the one that's gonna lose. And that's exactly what happened. I think eventually Biden is going to come to the top. I saw it read an article today and I can't remember where it was. I
think it might have been in Semaphore. Biden really wants to get much more aggressive with Trump, and I think that's the right thing to do. Actually, I've always thought that Biden ought to challenge Trump to a push up contest, because kick his butt, and I think if Trump could do a single pushup, I'd be amazed. So you know,
that'd be fun. But absent that, which is unlikely, I think that Biden needs to go after Trump and kick his butt publicly and not be so focused on the demeanor of the presidency because this is not a time for demeanor. This is a time for brawling, and Biden's not a brawler.
Yeah, I mean.
One I think is really interesting about all this reporting that comes out of the White House is like, he's angry, he dresses people down.
He yells at them, good do it. That's fine. I'm okay with that. You know, the stakes are quite high here.
He needs to focus on dressing Trump down because Trump is a total fraud. I don't want the United States people of the United States to find that out after he gets elected.
Yeah. I think that's right. Howard Dean, Thank you so much for joining us.
My pleasure, see you later.
Did you know Rick Wilson and I are bringing together some friends for a general election kickoff party at City Winery in New York on March sixth. We're going to be chatting right after Super Tuesday about what's going on, and it is going to probably be the one fun night for the next eighty days.
If you're in.
The New York area, please come by and join us. You can go to City Winery's website and grab a ticket. Andy Kim represents New Jersey's third congressional district and as a candidate in its upcoming Senate race. Welcome back, Too Fast Politics, my friend, Andy Kim.
Thank you for having me back. We always want to have you back, especially right now.
When we had you the first time, you had just done something super brave. You had become the person to jump into this race which had a Democrat running for reelection who is facing a plethora of legal challenges.
I think that's a very generous way to put it.
Talk to me about where you are right now in your primary.
You know, I just want to add this disclaimer.
We usually don't have people involved in primary fights, but this is you know, nepotism, something near and dear to my heart, and you know, a really interesting and also troubling situation.
So talk to us about it.
Yeah, happy to I mean, as you said, you know, when you have me on last time, Brown, I had stepped up the run against Bob Menendez twice indicted this time for gold bars, and I told you about how I was doing this to protect our democracy, give the
people a choice. The race has taken a turn, and it's gotten even more dramatic now I am running against the first lady of New Jersey, the governor's wife, the sitting governor's wife, bever in American history, and we had the spouse of a sitting governor run for stay wide office, especially having not ever run for office before. In fact, she's running as a Democrat, but she was a lifelong
Republican until about nine years ago. It's a lot of process, but the fundamental reason for why I'm doing this remains the same, which is that we have to protect our democracy. That that means that we have to give the people New Jersey a choice. But right now what we're seeing is you know that we're I live in the last remaining machine politics state in the country, and party elites are all in for the governor's wife. Surprise, surprise.
Let's talk about that, because what I've read about it is kind of I was actually really chocked when I read what's happening right now. So you have this primary that's coming up.
When it's on June fourth. The thing that I think.
Our listeners should know, which is something that always really upsets me, is that you know, I live in a blue city in a blue state, but there are things that encumbents do to protect themselves. That don't benefit anyone. They don't benefit the right, they don't benefit the left. They only benefit incumbency. What is happening here is even more insidious than that.
So discuss yeah right now. You know, in New Jersey we're seeing this in its worst form. I live, as I said, in the last machine politics state in the country, and its most pronounced way for the machine to control our democracy is to really, you know, manipulate the ballot. So forty nine other states use a type of ballot called office block, which is the traditional thing. You know, you have the other position you run a force Senate,
and then the name of the candidates below. In New Jersey, the system allows party elite to give preferential placement on the ballot for their hand pick candidate, which in this case is the first Lady of New Jersey, the governor's wife.
And you know, all this being said, you know, the governor just the other day announced is you know budget for the year, and mayors and county leaders and others that are negotiating with the governor about what money they're going to be able to get, you know, for their efforts. So I mean it's just a lot mixed into your deep conflicts of interest. But as a result, what happens is that the first lady in New Jersey announced her candidacy and immediately got multiple party leads to back her.
Many of these.
People never returned my phone calls, never gave me even a chance to be able to make my case, and the expectation is that she would be coordinated as the next senator from New Jersey. You know, I even have party leaders come to me tell me I should drop out and let her be able to do this, and I just I could not do that.
I just could not.
I could not do that. I have a six year old an eight year old. I don't think I could look kids of the eye if I felt like I was just stepping aside for someone who I truly believe that I am more capable and qualified of doing the job of the United States sent up a three term member of Congress. I've been a public servant by entire career. I'm a Democrat that won a district Trump won twice. You know, I've shown that I can win top races. So it's been a frustrating situation.
Before you were a politician, you were a nonpartisan government official, right.
Yeah, I worked in diplomacy and national security, was at the National Security Council at the White House under President Obama. But you're right, I was a you know, I was a career public servant. So you know, I've served this nation.
I understand the challenges that we're facing. But right now, the challenge that I'm facing is from my own party, which is crazy because I've spent the last you know, five plus years in Congress, you know, knife fighting and fighting with Republicans, you know, dealing, you know, being there at the Capitol Compound on January sixth and standing with President Biden to try to stop the Republicans from damaging our theocracy.
But unfortunately I'm here.
In New Jersey now having to fight against my own party now, which who I think, you know, party leaders are doing things that I just just full on considered to be on democratic you know, I believe in a democracy of fairness and equality, that any citizen has the ability to participate, not just the well off, not just the well connected. And I'm just not being given a fair shot here when I am given something closer to a fair shot, Like you know, we have some of
these counties have these conventions. I've been blowing it out of the way. I've been winning these conventions by double digits. The problem, though, is that half of the counties in New Jersey don't even have conventions, and they just allow one or two people to be able to handpick and give that preferential placement on the ballot to the first lady.
And that's what I find to be so frustrate.
You're still going to be on the ballot, You're just not gonna she's going to be above you.
Yeah, like I'll be on the ballot.
But the way our ballots are designed, it's that I can be off to the side, you know. Yeah. So basically the ballot is designed in like a column, so instead of it being by office, there'll be a one column that'll have you know, Joe Biden, Candy Murphy and all these other endorsed candidates. I'll be sung in some column over to the right, you know, and I won't have Joe Biden above me on the It's on the column.
So obviously, you know, when you're a voter and you you go up to the vote, you know you see Joe Biden's name, you know, yeah, you'll see Joe Biden's name, and you haven't been particularly paying attention to all these different races. You may just tick down that column, which is what the party leaders want.
They want voters to not be informed.
They don't they want voters to not really understand that there's a choice before them.
That's why I say it's manipulate. It is insanitay.
Yeah, it's been proven to give certain candidates upwards of double digits advantage.
And you know, and that's frustrating for me.
I mean, look right now, like I'm actually double digges up in the polls.
Right, but if they can't find you, they can't oh for you. Yeah, exactly.
And then so you know, that kind of lead that I have in the polls could potentially get degated simply because of gallet design manipulation that my own party leaders and the Democratic Party are leading the charge on. So you know, that's why you know, I've been pushing on this, and in fact, I just filed a lawsuit in New Jersey. It was not something that you know, I took that very seriously. You know, make that decision, but this has to end now, you know, it's just such a broken system.
All I'm asking for is air. I'm not asking for any advantage myself. I'm just being asked to be a place in a position where I can have some fairness here and forty nine other states do this, New Jersey's the only one that does this differently, you know that should say something, right.
Yeah, Well, I think what's so interesting about this problem is that you have a Republican party that is doing this kind of thing on the regular. This is one of the very few cases where you have a democratic party doing but you are running for a seat of someone who is in serious legal trouble for corruption.
Right like, So, if there ever were.
A time to be above board about everything, this is it.
And I think that that's why the people in New Jersey are not standing for There's been a big backlash, and I think that the party elites and the machine weren't prepared for this backlash. But it's because of exactly what you said. Just you know that on the heels of this indictment of the senator regarding gold bars and wads of cash, it's the same system that protected the senator that is now trying to install and coordinate the
first lady to be the next senator. So it's the same thing, you know, the same few handful of people. And I think that that's what's bothering so many people is just saying like, look, we can't have the same sable politics, like something hasn't changed.
And in fact, if.
The Democratic Party does not change, I actually I worry about our ability to be able to hold this Senate seat this November. I can tell you the independent voters in New Jersey are furious right now. They had concerns about the Democratic Party after this indictment of the senator, and now they're watching the Democratic Party, you know, just blatantly trying to push the first lady into a Senate
position without a fair contest. You know, that's going to really hurt our standing with independence, and that's going to hurt our ability to hold the seat. And with a razor thin majority in the Senate and a tough election cycle, the last thing with the Democratic Party needs is a potentially vulnerable seat in the Senate here in New Jersey.
You know what's interesting to me about this is one of the things I think Democrats have done really wow, and not even Democrats.
One of the things that I think Biden.
World has done well is they picked up He's managed to pick up all the never Trump Republicans, and you know he's done it by saying, you know, you may not like some of the social spending, you may not like my larger you know, I mean if you look at the manufacturing stuff. Though. The point is he's been able to really appeal to those voters. There are a lot of those voters in New Jersey. Talk to me about what your state sort of looks like and what your voter base looks like.
Yeah, you're absolutely right.
I mean, look in New Jersey the plurality of voters or unaffiliated voters, independent voters, so you know, that's really what you have to engage.
These are people that are unaffiliated for a reason.
And I know this because you know, I'm a Democrat that wanted district from twice. What I've come to learn in my experience of winning three tough races is that, you know, my district is often called this battleground district, and it may just sound like it's like a Blue army versus the Red Army duking it out every day. But what I learned is that in my district, and frankly across New Jersey, a lot of people are frankly
suspicious and frustrate with both pardons. That's why we have to show that we can restore trust and integrity to our politics. That's what I am running on because here in New Jersey, eighty four percent of people surveyed in New Jersey believe that their politicians are corrupt eighty four percent. And look, I mean this is a state where the majority of politicians are Democrats. So that shows what people
feel about Democrats right now here. So if we don't show that we're changing and don't show that we're trying to restore trust and integrity, the independent voters are not going to stand for I mean, we saw with you know, government, Murphy only won re election by you know, a handful of points. I think it was three points reelection a couple of years ago. This is something where you know, you cannot take things for granted. And I feel like the Democratic Party elites are playing with fire.
Yeah, no, I agree, Say you win this primary. How are you different than Tammy Murphy?
Well, a couple different reasons. First of all, I have experience of working in Congress, of actually working there at the Capitol you know, I can be somebody that is ready day one. You know, I don't need any on the job training. I'm ready for things. And right now the world is on fire. There's so many crises and conflicts. I'm the only career diplomatic congress right now in the House of the Senate. I can be somebody that can
step in and try to use that experience. I haven't been on the ground, working in war zones and working at the White House in the State Department to try to help.
I can be somebody that you know already understands.
You know, how to be able to navigate the legislative process, you know, and that's allowed me to you know, push forward on key issues. You know, for instance, understanding why we need philibuster reform to be able to get the things that we need passed in the Senate. Whereas you know, the First Lady of New Jersey, she's called the filibuster
a useful tool. I completely disagree, and so you know, those are some differences on that front that but look on the other at the other angle too, I think that there's a hunger right now in my state and throughout this country for a new generation of leadership to step up, and I will be the fourth youngest senator in the nation. I would be the first Asian American ever elected to the US Senate from the entire East
coast of America. And you know, I think that, you know, I think people are excited about, you know, having younger voices be able to come up, and certainly for the Democratic Party to build out their bench and be able to have more diverse, younger leaders that are there showing what the future of the party is. And the fact that you know, again, I've been a Democrat that can
win a district Trump one twice. I have a lot to offer to the party about how we try to build out a wider and stronger coalition that can help us build a durable majority going forward. And so, you know, those are the things that you know, I hope voters see in me as someone who can try to fight those fights and make the party stronger and help fix and heal our democracy at such a critical point in our nation's history.
As we're looking down this election, tell me what you can do now to get your name on the ballot?
Is there a process here?
Well?
Right now?
A A couple of efforts which is first of all, like I will be on the ballot and June fourth, and what I need to do is make sure that we are raising the resources and building the kind of campaign that we need to to be able to get mine, you know, making my name out there, to have people understand that there's a choice. You know, the last thing I want are people showing up on June fourth at the primary and be unaware that there's a competitive senate race.
You know, I need people to be able to walk in there knowing that there is a center race, hopefully knowing my name and knowing something about me. So you know, that's what I'm pushing on, and that people want to help out. You know, they can go to Andy Kim dot com and beyond that. You know, right now we are building up, you know, a grassroots army. Right now, this is going to be the largest grassroots mobilization for
any primary, statewide prime in our state's history. We're building up something incredible, and you know, we need people that are willing to knock doors or make text calls and other things like that that are helpful to get.
The word out right now.
You know, those are the types of things that we're pushing on, and I do believe that if we can pull that together and raise the resources and run the campaign that we need to, that we.
Can win this.
We can overcome what obstacles the machine politics are throwing in by way, and I think people recognize this is a potentially historic collection for our state to finally be able to have a real democracy here that is going to be based on fairness, going to allow people to be able to vote the way they want.
One thing I've learned as they've gone around the stated people in New Jersey don't want to be.
Told to the They despise that, and I think right now we're seeing that come to ahead. You know, I'm hopeful that people will stand up for their own voice in our democracy.
Thank you so much, Andy Kim. I really appreciate you well.
Thank you for letting me let me talk about this race. It's certainly an extremely dramatic and crazy race, but it's one that I think really gets to this question. And you know, I was there with Joe Biden when he gave a speech about January sixth earlier this year, and he said, we know who Donald Trump is, but who are we? And I think that question, who are we and who is the Democratic Party? Who are we as Democrats?
Like that is important and I think that this race both in terms of it being about you know, Senator Menendez and his indictments and allegations of corruption, and then now this issue as you raised about the First Lady and nepotism and about machine politics, the question is who are we as Democrats? I hope that we show that better than what we're seeing right now in New Jersey.
I believe that, and that's why I'm running. But I really do think that kind of gets at the heart of this question of like what is the soul of the Democratic Party?
Who are we? What do we stand for?
And then that's why I think it's been a race that has captivated a lot of people, not just in New Jersey but across his country. And I hope people see the importance of us standing up and showing who we are because I think it'll have major implications for our abilities to be able to win elections going forward.
Thank you, Andy m Thank you so much.
Jim Acosta is the host of CNN Newsroom with Jim Acosta every weekdays at ten am eest at CNN.
Welcome to Fast politics. How weird is this I'm hosting you. Welcome, Jim Acosta.
Wow, this is cool. This is like news inception or something.
It's right, we're through the mirror, through the looking glass. Thank you for having me.
I'm so excited to have you because, first of all, I love to go on your show.
I can't go on your show at this moment. Yeah, somedayon I can give it up, hope.
But I'm very excited about your move to every day. So talk to us about your new time slot.
Yeah.
So now it's Monday through Friday at ten am Easter and a seven am on the West. I'm wapping about so people waking up on the West coast you can tune it in and you can change your viewing on this.
It's great.
I mean, you know the weekend thing where you know you are on about the debt right that much. But you know we're able to do all these interviews. We could give them time.
You know, we did breaking news, a lot of politics, and this is going to be a little bit different. I have one hour now, so I have to really you know, compress, and the segments aren't quite as long. But we're going to try to keep it conversational, like we're going to try to take the good stuff from the weekend and bring it on to the morning showed during the weekend, hope people to tune in.
Yeah, I was hoping you could talk about like there's something very cool about being able to do the news every day though absolutely.
For example, I mean this this week, we've been doing binary stuff and the results from that. This morning, we had the situation in Gaza. I mean, it was just breaking news happening during our program, and Biden went out on the South lawn on his way to the border and he made a comment about it. So we're jumping around in sort of news whackable. We're moving from one news story to the next, and it's going to be
fast moving. But at the same time, you know, emphasis on my part, I'm really trying to preserve the those conversations, those interviews that we can kind of get it beyond the headlines a little bit. As you and I have talked about so many times, don't talk about the horse race, talk about the stakes, don't just talk about the polls, talk about the chow bases, and like try to get people something a little little meeting as they're getting these headlines.
I'm hoping we're doing it.
You know, we're back to this crazy news cycle of just like endless news that it does make it very hard to cover it. But let's talk for a minute about like stakes versus odds, because that is something you and I are both like really passionate about, this idea that the way you cover news is as important as what you cover, right.
I mean absolutely.
One of the things, and you and I've talked about this gazillion times, is that we have this extremely important election. I know it's a cliche for everybody to say this is the most important election of our lifetime, but I think this time we can really say it and mean it. I come from the experience of having covered the White House during the Trump years.
We saw how administration ended.
I actually flew on Air Force one with Donald Trump when he went down to West Palm Beach and was done with being the President of the United States.
I mean, I was with them on that.
Final day, and one of the things that I said to my colleagues is that, Okay, Trump may be gone, but trump Ism todays it remains. It's not going anywhere. And I think that's what we are now seeing lay out at this very moment. Not only is Trump backed, but trump Ism is back on steroids, and it's filtered down into our politics to just about every level. And it's something that we're going to all have.
To contend with in the months to god, I mean, disinformation, democracy, I mean, these are all the issues we're going to be talking about from here until November.
I think back to those salid days of January twenty twenty one. Do you think we were all too naive the fact that so many of us thought that, including people like Mitch McConnell, thought that Trumpism would resolve itself.
I think so.
And honestly, I mean, I've looked at this gazillion different way. I did this when I covered the White House.
Some of this is a coping mechanism that a lot of people have, which is, Okay, you know, one of these days, it's all got to catch up with Donald Trump and he's just going to leave the scene. Guess what that did not happen. That that's not happened. Folks might have thought up until yesterday or the middle of this week. Oh, the Supreme Court. This will all end at the Supreme Court. Okay, well, maybe it won't.
It may on everybody to go out there and vote and participate in this democracy. And I think, Molly, but you have said it best when you come on this show. This is the election about whether we're going to have elections, And I think all of this.
Is extremely important stuff. I do think to some extent, we folks wanted to look the other way. They wanted to stick their head in a sand and just to kind of ignore it and hope some of this extremism in our politics would go away. And guess what, it didn't, and so we're going to have to deal with it.
Yeah, no question.
And I do think like this idea that trump Ism would somehow resolve itself and that.
We would go back to normal has been interesting.
This week we saw the Supreme Court decide to look at the insane presidential immunity.
It was so crazy that even people with.
Low expectations for the Supreme Court were shocked that they took it up. It does go back to this question of like will our institute, you know, the people who have been bragging about our institutions holding, have they really well?
And I, you know, was talking to a guest on my show this morning, Doug High, and he was saying, you know, the Supreme Court, and it's becoming like every other institution, the media, the NFL, what have you. An American society that's just not what it used to be. It's not as popular as it used to be, you know, and we don't really have as much time as I wanted to kind of delve into that, but it's an
interesting comment to make. The Supreme Court should be above all of that, like it should be the one branch of government, should be the one institution in American society that should be above reproach. And it is damaged right now. The image and the institution is damaged. And it is just a fact of life of this started with Dobbs and when you saw those justices when they were nominees up on Capitol and I was saying, oh, Roe is
president president, should be with respective as oo want. And then that obviously was not like one hundred percent of what was going on in the back of their minds, because as soon as they had the chance to throw a row versus the way they did and so as tushit, it is damaged and it is something that we're going to have to do with I think in terms of the immunity issue, Thank goodness, if I could say one thing about the Supreme Court that they are allowing audio
out of these proceedings when they do have the oral arguments about this immunity issue, It's going to be fascinating because I want.
To know why is it worried Eve been hearing this?
I mean, it seems to be pretty straightforward if you look at USA versus Nixon, right, Yeah.
No, the Nixon case is insane, I mean, and there's not it's just completely wild.
Yeah.
It was pointed out to me that William Renquist accused himself in that case and Claire S.
Thomas is not.
We're acusing himself in any of these proceedings. And so, I mean, I do think it's not unreasonable for folks to have questions about how the Supreme Court is conducting itself. And it's certainly playing everything that we're seeing right now, there's no question about.
Yeah, and just it's sort of shocking, right really, So I'm curious now, as you're sort of in this brave new world. What I think is pretty interesting about trump Ism is that there was so much sort of norm shifting, but a lot of those rooms haven't necessarily come back.
No, I know, it's so true. And you know, when I was covering him.
At the White House, you know, there was this constant conversation about are we being too tough? Are we drifting into something else besides meeting the potatoes straight down the middle of journalism? And honestly, I look back at the way we covered it, and I look at the way
we cover him now. And as I've said in the past, I'll say it again, a different kind of president calls for a different kind of playbook, and he is right to behave in these sorts of ways that I mean, sayd that's kind of light you know, Westland past the grade. Letther like, I mean, it's beyond that. And so asked the cover. So I mean, at least going to not tell the truth of it, we have to call that out. If he is going to talk about being a dictator on day one, we have to we have to call that out.
I mean.
And so you know, one of the things that I tell folks a lot who asks you know, maybe you were doing two mins there, maybe it was a liver top over there. My question is is like, Okay, what do you want us to do. We have to cover the news and a former president who represented that's somewhat at a threat to democracy. And I'm being diplomatic when I say that.
That's the news. You got to call it the way you see it.
And that's what I've done in the past, and that's what I'll continue to do, and that's what a lot of my colleagues do, and I think it's it's the right way to go.
I think back to like what George Conway told me a while ago. It was like, Trump is going to destroy everything, the Republican.
Party, all of it.
And you know he was I think a little wistful because he you know, he helped build that Republican Party and it's going to all have to be destroyed. And the thing, like with the Mitch McConnell stuff, it's like, you really do see that in fact, there is no place for anything that isn't MAGA in this party, despite the fact that it started as a populist notion, but it's largely morphed into something than most people don't really want.
Yeah, and Mally, it's amazing that you can bring up George Conway, because I think George is a perfect example of somebody who is in that world, in Trump's world, I think almost went to the Trump administration and had been in Republican politics for a long time.
I mean, you and I both done them.
Like how many former Trump administration and officials have I had on my show, Stephanie Grisham, Mark Esper. The list goes on and on, who have been on CNN and in general on all the networks talking to sixty Minutes and so on, who talk about Trump as a danger to democracy, to talk about Trump is not being fit to serve as president of the United States. And you know, if all of those folks are saying something, of course that's the do is. We have to cover it. It
is what it is. I do think what you're saying about is the Republican Party going to go by the wayside. Maybe, I mean you have.
To have two parties. I mean you should probably have more, but we used to exactly and mainly that's the phase.
But I think in twenty twenty, I think we might see the gap the near twenty twenties.
But look at that NICKI Haley number. The other night with Mischig, there.
Was all this talk of uncommitted and this protest vote against Joe Biden. There were people who vote to Vernickie Haley than Donald Trump in the Michigan frontment. That was lower that we've seen in some of the other early
primary states. And I have to think that some of those folks are the kind of Republicans who are going to say, you know what, we're going to either sit this one out and wait until twenty twenty eight, or we're going to go and vote for Biden at the top of the ticket and vote for Republicans by the other parts of the ticket. I think that that is quite possible, and so I'm not one of those folks who's short are down in the Dumpston thinks it's all
going to go down the tubes. I just don't see that happening just yet, because I think that people underestimate how seeply unpopular the former president is. How were these sweet districts outside of Philadelphia and Detroit and Phoenix in Atlanta. Are they just going to have it out of body experience and all of a sudden say, okay, now I'm okated with Williams' Donald Trump after they sort of put
that one to rest. I just don't know, so I you know, I really think this is a jump ball heading into November and possibly even advantaged Biden at this point. That spy what people said.
It's really interesting when you think about this party's problem because there has been like an enormous realignment that we don't talk about so much, which is that the more educated you are, the more likely you are to vote for Democrats. You know, if you look at the numbers, some college, college, grad school, postgrad, and it does seem to cut completely along those lines, which that was not
always the case. In fact, until very recently, Mitt Romney was a candidate because Mitt Romney was an archetype right of a conservative voter. I mean, that shift has to be meaningful.
Absolutely, And I think I covered the Romney campaign. I was with him on election dight when he lost to Barack Obama, and he was very much sort of the last fashion of the establishment of the Republican Party. And who knows, maybe Trump will be such a disaster politically for the Republican Party that they will go to admit Romney type the next time I'm around. I mean, I
do think that there is an appetite for that. I do think, to Biden's credit, I mean on the Democratic side, he is not like a movement's figure Joe Biden, but as an establishments figure of the Democratic Party, he's managed to hang on to the party quite well. Look at the way these early primary states have been worked out for him, Dean Phillips, what is he pulling?
And he's just nothing. It's not like a bird situation.
It is not like a Hillary Clinton versus Baracco o'bama situation.
No, it's not. It's just not it's not at all.
In fact, one of my kids came in when we were watching results the other day and he's like, who the fuck is Dean Phillips? And I was like, you read the newspaper every day and you don't know who he is?
Wow.
Well, when the New York Times has a story about how you have a coffee you get the coffee truck in New Hampshire and they write a story saying that nobody showed up, that is typically not a good sign.
That is not a good sign.
But it is like one of the things that this White House complains about, and I actually think they're probably right, is that this is their complaint. But I think they feel that the mainstream media does not like them, and we're talking about I know, I hate to, you know, speak out of school, but you know, you do see the tweets talk to me about like you would think that the sane White House would be more liked by the mainstream media than the insane White House.
Yeah, I mean I covered Obama the second term, and you know they would get mad at us back then.
I can tell you the stories about that.
I do think to some extent it's it's sort of the conversations you and I had Molly on my old weekend show. There's Earth one on Earth too. Biden having problems with the border is sort of an Earth One problem. When I covered Obama in the second term in the Obamacare website did work for a couple of weeks.
That was sort of an.
Earth One problem.
People's where I mean the capital on January dits it was very much to the Earth too kind of saying with Donald Trump. And you know, to some extent, I do think that some of the complaints from Democrats on the progressive side are warranted when they look at the both sides ism that goes on in the media and whatnot. And I do think you do have to have some
sense of perspective. But at the same time, I mean, you know this, somebody once said politics ain't being back, and I think if your White House, you have to expect there's going to be a critical coverage when it comes to the word. There's going to be a critical
covered when it comes to Gaza. I do think the president has a really tough problem when it comes to Israelal Prime Minister Benjamin Yahoo and how Biden negotiates city is as one of these grand negotiators in the old school of a way and to negotiate with bb Net and Yahoo out of this mess. I mean, I had James Carlival on the other day and he made it a very good point saying that Joe Biden does not want this problem slaaring up at the Democrat at a convention.
Certainly, not especially we're back in Chicago again and.
Back in Chicago and exactly so, I mean, I do think, yes, that there are times when it's sort of like the Obama tan suit phenomenon re yours. It's ugly head, I don't know, And yes they do yell when the pool sprays, and and the President's sort of like, okay, who do I think a.
Question pro they proud Washington tradition. But I've played a party in myself. I have to play guilty to some extent to that. The other thing I don't get Molly is Okay, Biden comes out, he goes out and gets on the helicopter, and you cannot hear the questions.
You can only hear the brosident of the video. Audio quality is terrible, and Trump used to do it when he was brother. I wish if I could just put out, if I could put one suggestion in the suggestion box, that we just don't do those anymore. Those are just the harediest TV situations.
I do think the.
President would be well served in having more news compens I think he does well in those settings. We're not here to do them any favors or tell them how to do things or where. I just think, you know, Obama handled him pretty well. He didn't like to do them very much, and I think I miss kind of in the same boat.
I think that that would help him, But I don't know.
I'm not here to give any pointers here, but I think more of those would maybe serve him well and maybe take some.
Of the keep that they are feeling over there.
Away, Jim Mcosta. I hope you'll come back, of.
Course, as alwayss that was so fast, but it was great to catch up with you.
No moment, Jesse Cannon, my jump fast. You know.
It's not often friends of the show get great news, but Congressman Ruem Diego got some great news. What are you seeing here?
Kirson Cinema raise no money and is now dropping out.
I want to take a moment here to extend a hearty.
I don't want to curse, because this is a kind of gentler jong a hearty. You are not a good person to both Kirston Cinema and also Joe Manchin, because had those two just been a little bit better people and not so interested in getting money from lobbyists, we would have a lot more progressive legislation. We would have a permanent child tax credit. We would have things that you can't even dream of, free pre.
K at the national level.
You know, we could have a lot of stuff had those two not decided they were fiscal conservatives. And also, by the way, I am happy to see them both go. So Democrats will lose the seat in West Virginia. But looks like our friend of the show and great funny, brilliant Congressman Rubin Diego will clean the floor with Governor Carrie Lake. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to hear the best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos.
If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send me to a friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.